MasterPeace COOLeaders inclusive business platform – a global program in association with Ecociate

Recently, I attended a one-day conference on “Inclusive Growth - Impacting Agriculture and Food Systems” organized by Ecociate, a partner organization of MasterPeace. MasterPeace was one of the partner organizations of the conference, and it also had UN -ESCAP (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific), among other notable and vital institutions, as one of its main supporters. This conference was held at the India Habitat Center, New Delhi on June 20, 2024. The conference focused mainly on the opportunities, challenges, and support systems relating to agro-based start-ups that have an approach that goes against the mainstream business practices in sourcing chemical-free produce to adopting more climate-friendly agricultural methods, fair pay to farmers, and ensuring gender equality. It was an intense conference with many sessions focussing on specific Inclusive Growth aspects. Ecociate has been mentoring start-ups who are engaged with Inclusive Business and it was encouraging to see that many of these start-ups have been successful in raising investments. Some of them are indeed running at a profit at early stages. Many such start-ups were awarded at the end of the conference and they shared their first-hand experience in running such a business, which was quite inspirational.

As a follow-up to the conference and learnings from Ecociate’s 18-month-long inclusive business coaching program, Ecociate decided to launch the Inclusive Business Ecosystem Network (IBEN)[1] to bring together stakeholders and ecosystem players from different spectrums and build an enabling environment for the growth of inclusive businesses, which can support smallholders and other marginalized communities at scale while being sustainable and profitable.

MasterPeace & Ecociate have been working together for some time to design meaningful solutions for marginalized communities. MasterPeace has decided to join the IBEN platform with Ecociate to strengthen its agenda of inclusive growth further by supporting inclusive businesses in the agriculture and food sector and developing leaders for this sector.

The MasterPeace COOLeaders is a global program that seeks to motivate and provide the necessary tools to people to catalyze them into being change makers towards a paradigm that focuses on integral development in material, cultural, and spiritual spheres. The objectives of IBEN Platforms, align well with the objectives and activities of MasterPeace COOLeaders, thus, both of these initiatives have decided to work together in their efforts to support vulnerable and marginalized communities.

COOLeader is one who cares about herself/ himself (in terms of mental, physical, economic and cultural state), others, the place, and works towards economic sustainability while at all times working towards restoring and regenerating our natural ecology. One remarkable feature of MasterPeace COOLeaders program is its extensive deployment & support for arts (visual & performing), design & music to mobilize and to bring about & embody the desired change.

We believe that Inclusive businesses run by COOLeaders, can be the driver of this kind of change-making as it fosters healthy values, just and contribute positively towards the ecology and make places and societies safe and happy places to live in by contributing to the Triple Bottom Line (People, Profit & Planet). Encouraging inclusive entrepreneurship is a great way to address the unemployment problem around the world, which is the cause of poverty and conflicts. At the same time, we can ensure that development doesn’t come at the cost of the natural ecology and doesn't destabilize the well-being of future generations. These businesses have the potential to be disruptors by challenging the status quo and driving for policy changes, and steering towards equilibrium or middle grounds. MasterPeace with its network of clubs in 45 countries, which are largely working in marginalized areas will work together with IBEN to support the inclusive business around the world. This, coupled with Ecociate’s long years of expertise and network in this field, make us confident that we would be able to make a substantial impact on the improvement of human conditions and the natural ecology

However, starting and sustaining such a business does have extra layers of complexities and its learning curve. This coming together of MasterPeace and Ecociate through IBEN platform will help to shorten the learning curve by providing the start-ups with support in sourcing from certified farmers, connecting them to impact investors, allowing them access national & global markets, research and knowledge-based institutions and connects them with other business services like innovative branding, meeting statutory requirements, etc. We also intend to work with the governments & other stakeholders to improve agroecology.

The mission of IBEN is to enable more than 1000 Agribusiness and enterprise and impact the lives of 1000000 farmers by 2030 around the world. We look forward to your co-operation to make our efforts successful so that we can look a future with better quality of leadership, inclusive development and ecological harmony.

If you would like to join the IBEN platform and become COOL Inclusive business leaders or would like to know more or some ideas for change, please connect with sudipta@masterpeace.org.

Annexure-1

Genesis of Inclusive Business Ecosystem Network

The Inclusive Business Ecosystem Network (IBEN) has emerged as a response to the demonstrated need for a cohesive and collaborative platform that supports inclusive and impact-focused agribusinesses.

Ecociate has been working with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP) under the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded Inclusive Business Support Program in India and the ASEAN region. Through this initiative, we have worked closely with a meticulously selected cohort of 19 agribusiness companies, providing them with customized coaching and support to help identify and integrate inclusive business opportunities into their core operations. Throughout the program, these companies devised a range of solutions, from delivering digital and physical technologies to smallholder farmers, to adopting gender-inclusive practices, ensuring fair prices for farmers, and promoting sustainable agriculture and dairy management practices. These efforts have led to significant enhancements in productivity and income for smallholder farmers, with a notable impact on women farmers.

The program underscored the substantial benefits of bringing together a cohort of inclusive businesses alongside development sector players such as NGOs, community institutions, bilateral programs, and relevant government agencies. This collaborative approach creates extensive opportunities for learning, partnerships, and mutually beneficial engagements that amplify grassroots impact. This experience revealed the necessity of establishing an enabling ecosystem and policy environment to support and incentivize inclusive businesses to harness their full potential. In response to these insights, we engaged in extensive discussions with cohort members, the UN-ESCAP team, and other relevant stakeholders. This collective dialogue led to the consensus that forming a network-based organization would be pivotal in creating ground-level impact by uniting inclusive businesses and other stakeholders on a single platform. This shared vision has culminated in the formation of the Inclusive Business Ecosystem Network (IBEN).

Act as a Doughnut

Our EU-co-funded project, “ACT as a Doughnut,” is finalized and shared with the broader network of partners in 40+ countries. Partners in Morocco, Croatia, Lebanon, and Kosovo are currently reusing and upgrading all materials and tailoring our approach to the local MENA region context. We are extremely proud of this result. Our societies face multiple crises: climate and environmental, increasing gaps between those who "have and have not," lack of (jobs) perspective, (Im-) migration, and a generic distrust in institutes, especially amongst our "Gen Z" youngsters.

ACT as a Doughnut is our quest to find a creative and innovative answer to youngsters' lack of engagement in taking action, creating their own future, and building together a sustainable urban context. Our needs analyses showed that all partners lacked appropriate non-formal educational materials.

Together, we took this 30-month journey to discuss, learn, share, and tailor global concepts like Artivism and DOUGHNUT Economy Materials to youth work and education. We believe, with the help of our friends at https://community-arts.net/ and https://doughnuteconomics.org/, we are among the first globally to pilot these concepts

ACT as a Doughnut aimed to engage, connect, and empower youngsters to be active citizens and co-create "their "thriving city. We developed educational materials and trained youth workers who trained local associated teachers in the domain of social science/citizenship. Their students created a city portrait and used the power of imagination to imagine what their thriving city would look like. Second, based on education materials, they advised active citizens of their city on the best next steps.

Our primary target groups are youth workers, students aged 15- 19 years, and their teachers. Our secondary target groups are city representatives and Associated Partners. All youngsters deserve a quality education and ACT to create their future. We knew by experience and are backed by reports that we faced gaps in all five countries.

Our main objective is to boost youngsters' positive and active participation to create a sustainable future in their local community based on shared (EU) values.

We developed Non-Formal Educational materials to;

• be used by youngsters on social cohesion AND environmental challenges; they run projects and realize their inclusive democratic participation;
• support teachers on new key competencies, create a new curriculum and co-create transnational insights

 Our sub-objectives:

• creating innovative curricula or courses using creativity, arts, and culture
• learn about social inclusion within the boundaries of our planet
• grow didactic and educational skills via blended learning (development of key competencies)
• to engage youngsters to start community projects and provide feedback as co-creator of new education formats (inclusive democratic participation)
• to build an ecosystem with the students as an accelerator in co-creation with their community and local government for sustainable change
• to pilot the Doughnut theory in Education
• to grow the network of Arts for social change via Education

Result 1 “Engage, connect and Empower" handbook; a ready-to-use and scalable handbook/ with Non-Formal educational materials in 6 languages. (Dutch, English, German, Polish, Romanian, Slovakian,

Result 2: An online "train the trainer" course is being offered; youth workers and teachers are trained. The course is scalable and available online in six languages.

Result 3  "ACT as a Doughnut community projects"; ca 60 students per country (in total 300) implemented (split in 5 teams) projects in their communities and chose out of the five categories of the Doughnut theory (so per country 5, in total 25 projects);

1. a) "Empowered" (focusing on the topics of Peace & Justice, Social equity, Political Voice, and Equality in Diversity);
2. b) "Connected" (focusing on the topics of connectivity, community, mobility, and culture);
3. c) "Enabled" (focusing on the topics jobs, income, education, and energy)
4. d) "Healthy" (focusing on the topics of health, housing, water, and food)
5. e) "Local-ecological"- (the environmental dimension)

The local community in their city experienced the ideas that the students put into action (via the 5 projects) and representatives of the city gained insight into the ambitions of their youngsters and learned that youngsters can become active citizens and co-create to realize the local strategies

Result 4: ACT Relay; Students learned from their peers in other countries, deepened their understanding of the contexts in the five countries and their own insights into how to create a thriving city, and finalized the 25 recommendations (5 per category) for their city representatives. In total, we received 125 recommendations.

Result 5: ACT in Education Lab (Knowledge Platform) Our methodology, the lessons learned in general, and the 25 recommendations per city were shared on our platform that is linked with the CAN and DEAL knowledge base. 5 City portraits were also shared on this and the DEA platform

Moreover, feedback from participants showed a great impact in quantity and quality:

- The projects guided by youth workers and teachers involved ca. 300 students
- The 5 multiplier events hosted 150 stakeholders to foster the ecosystem needed for transformation
- Education proved to play a responsible role as a driver of transformation in their cities.
- Youth workers grew in impact as they grew their skills and quality formats for social innovation
- Teachers gained didactic and personal skills and learned how to use a broader education portfolio relevant to a digital era
- Students were engaged and empowered as they ran innovative projects and embraced the co-creator role of blended formats.

Our follow-up strategy, as described below in this report, resulted in unique scalability potential as we shared this on a global level with NGO's in 40+ countries via the MP NL network and the partners in their regional and national networks.

We express our gratitude to our local funders and EU as main co funder to enable and facilitate these scalable results.

Partners

Fotografie en storytelling workshops bij STIP VSO

MasterPeace, Aad van Vliet en STIP VSO kijken terug naar een leuke eerste samenwerking met storytelling workshops door middel van fotografie. In juni 2024 verzorgden we verschillende lessen waarbij de leerlingen van 2 klassen van het STIP VSO ons meenamen in hun leefwereld.

Tijdens de eerste les gingen we met de leerlingen in gesprek over fotograferen. Want wat doet een fotograaf eigenlijk? Een fotograaf maakt natuurlijk foto's, maar om foto's te maken is het heel belangrijk om goed te kijken. Aad nam de leerlingen mee in het concept van kaderen. Door het kijken door een passe partout ontdekten de leerlingen dat er hele andere perspectieven kunnen ontstaan.

Natuurlijk zijn de leerlingen ook zelf op pad gegaan om foto's te maken. De leerlingen zaten allemaal in hun laatste jaar op STIP VSO en kregen de opdracht om foto's te maken van wat ze nou echt gaan missen als van de school af zijn. Waar de ene leerling het nog niet zo goed wist, sprintten anderen al naar de gymzaal, de aula, de voetbalkooi en hun favoriete leraar. Als huiswerk opdracht voor de volgende les maakten de leerlingen 3 tot 8 foto's van iets wat zij in de week meemaakten.

Tijdens de tweede les gingen we met de leerlingen in gesprek over de foto's van hun ervaringen van afgelopen week. Een aantal dingen die naar voren kwamen waren: sport, gamen, voetbal kijken, lekker eten en mooie ervaringen met vrienden. Hierna gingen we met de ene groep rondom de school op pad om foto's te maken van iets wat gek of raar is. Hier kwamen grappige foto's uit van verloren kledingstukken, gekke auto's en gekke reclame. Mooi om te zien was dat sommige leerlingen dezelfde dingen hadden gefotografeerd maar op een hele andere manier. Met de andere klas gingen we op pad om foto's te maken van iets wat ze mooi vonden. Het was lekker weer dus er kwamen mooie foto's uit van bloemetjes, bomen en natuur. De huiswerk opdracht voor de laatste les was om 3 foto's te maken van waar je blij van wordt.

Tijdens de laatste les bekeken en bespraken we samen de foto's waar iedereen blij van wordt. Dingen als huisdieren, lekker eten, de zon, vrienden, een moeder, mooie bloemen, verzamelingen en leuke ervaringen werden afgebeeld.

Het was heel mooi en waardevol om een inkijkje in de leefwereld van deze leerlingen te krijgen en hun helemaal uit hun schulp te zien kruipen als ze praten over iets waar ze blij van worden en we hebben daarom ook al plannen gemaakt om dit in het volgende schooljaar nogmaals, met meerdere klassen te gaan doen.

*Gefinancierd door de Europese Unie. De hier geuite opvattingen en meningen komen echter uitsluitend voor rekening van de auteur(s) en geven niet noodzakelijkerwijs die van de Europese Unie of het Nationaal Agentschap weer. Noch de Europese Unie, noch het Nationaal Agentschap kan ervoor aansprakelijk worden gesteld.

MasterPeace COOL Talk Series: Redefining Leadership Beyond Gender Norms

On 28 June 2024, MasterPeace conducted another COOLTalk as part of a series titled "Gender and Leadership: Redefining Leadership Beyond Gender Norms." The event brought together 25 participants from different parts of the world, spanning four continents, reflecting a truly global perspective.

The two speakers for the series were Elma Berisha, Head of the Research Department at SIT-Center for Counseling, Social Service, and Research Kosovo, and Ayush Joshi, Director for Advocacy, Campaigns, Communication, and Media (ACCM) at Save the Children International Nepal. The session was moderated by the human rights advocate and Creative Resource Mobilizer (CRM) at MasterPeace, Saugat Jung Pandey.

The event started with an introduction by MasterPeace's Creative Resource Mobilizer (CRM) Ashwini Dhakal, who provided an overview of the MasterPeace COOL Talk series and how the idea came about. He highlighted the diverse global participation and emphasized the representation of both the Global North and Global South among the speakers. This set the stage for the discussion on new leadership paradigms and the evolving role of women in leadership positions.

New Leadership Paradigm

The moderator started the discussion by posing a question about the new leadership paradigm and the increasing visibility of women in leadership roles. He mentioned that "leadership has no gender". He cited examples of prominent women leaders in politics, such as Kamala Harris, and in the corporate world, such as those leading organizations like PepsiCo and General Motors.

Elma Berisha responded by describing leaders as agents of change and transformation. She shared how a trainer from Harvard University reshaped her concept of leadership and criticized historical examples of brutal leaders like Alexander the Great, Napoleon, and Caesar. She emphasized that the new leadership paradigm contrasts sharply with the old, which was hierarchical and fear-based.

She explained that modern leadership is about inspiring and empowering others, promoting egalitarianism, and fostering a cooperative and inclusive environment. Elma also noted the generational shift, with Gen Z and Gen Y more inclined towards diversity and inclusion rather than traditional leadership modes.

Challenges and Opportunities in the Global South

Ayush Joshi offered a perspective from the Global South, noting that patriarchy remains pervasive and shapes societal roles and expectations. He discussed the unconscious biases that influence leadership perceptions, citing examples from daily life where women's decision-making is often overshadowed by male preferences. Ayush stressed the need to challenge these norms and biases to diversify leadership and recognize the capabilities of women and marginalized groups.

Gender Stereotypes and Social Norms

The moderator shifted the conversation towards gender stereotypes and social norms that limit women's leadership opportunities. He also cited the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report of 2023, which showed that the percentage of women in leadership is lower than that of men in every sector and, surprisingly, also lower in sectors traditionally considered to be women-dominated, such as healthcare, well-being, education, and NGO’s.

Elma highlighted the significant gender gap in leadership, with women making up almost 50% of the global workforce but only a quarter of leadership positions. She discussed unconscious gender biases and the importance of equal opportunities, emphasizing that women should be paid equally for the same work as their male counterparts. She also pointed out the dual influences of nature and nurture on gender roles and expectations.

Ayush, agreeing with Elma, added that gender stereotypes and norms hinder diverse leadership. He shared a story from Jajarkot, Nepal, which was recently struck by a 6.4 magnitude earthquake where a girl challenged a harmful norm related to menstruation where menstruating women were not allowed to touch cows or drink their milk as they were considered to be impure during that period. She challenged this norm and demonstrated leadership informed by knowledge and rational decision-making. Ayush argued that diversifying leadership requires addressing deep-seated societal norms and biases and that only when more women can be encouraged to take up leadership roles.

LGBTQ+ Leadership and Inclusion

The third question focused on LGBTQ+ leadership and the need for inclusive leadership. Elma connected this to the broader theme of diversity and inclusion, emphasizing that genuine leadership must embrace diversity for pragmatic gains, such as better innovation and financial performance. Ayush added that inclusive leadership should be continuous and intentional, not just limited to symbolic events like Pride Month.

Q&A

The session concluded with questions from the audience. One question addressed uplifting rural women's leadership, to which Elma responded that cooperation and support from urban leadership are crucial for women in rural area to come forward. Similarly, another question focused on increasing knowledge on inclusion, particularly for the LGBTQIA+ community in the Global South. Ayush suggested starting with sensitization training to address biases at home and school. He also shared a success story of sensitizing teachers and school management in regard to LGBTIA+ issues.

Elma shared an inspiring story of her senior partner, Rinida Das Frost, who founded the Frost and Sullivan Malaysia office, demonstrating how role models can make a difference. She added that Frost, who was initially there in Malaysia with her husband to take off their child and be a housewife, later was bored with staying at home and wanted to do something about her career. That it when she started Frost and Sullivan Malaysia Office. Similarly, Ayush emphasized the importance of positive role modeling and empowering underrepresented communities to diversify and achieve inclusive leadership.